Belisarius

Belisarius (500-565) was a general of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian. He was a military genius, conquering the Vandalic Kingdom from 533 to 534 and then the Ostrogothic Kingdom from 535 to 540; his near-restoration of the Western Roman Empire earned him the nickname "The Last Roman".

Biography
Belisarius was born in Germane, Thrace (now Sapareva Banya, Bulgaria) in 500 AD, and he came from an Illyrian and Thracian family. He became a Byzantine soldier as a young man and became Emperor Justin I of Byzantium's favorite bodyguard. He came to Justin and his adoptive son Justinian's attention as a promising officer, raising his own regiment of household cavalry. In 527 AD, Justinian mae him commander of an army in the Levant which was fighting against Sassanid Persia, and he defeated the Persians at the Battle of Dara and the Battle of Callinicum in 530 and 531 AD, respectively. In 532, he suppressed the Nika riots, and Justinian rewarded him with command of an expedition to reconquer the former Western Roman Empire. From 533 to 534, he campaigned against the Vandalic Kingdom in North Africa, conquering it in nine months following victories at Ad Decimum and Tricamarum in 533. From 535 to 554 AD, he proceeded to campaign against the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, defeating the Ostrogoths in Naples in 536, Rome from 537 to 538, Ravenna from 539 to 540, and Rome in 546. In 537, he deposed Pope Silverius on the orders of the monophysite empress Theodora, as she believed that the Pope had conspired with the Goths and the Roman Senate to secretly open the gates of Rome to the Ostrogoths. Belisarius retired after his campaign's end, but his retirement ended in 559, defeating invading Bulgars at Melantias. He died in 565, within a few months of Emperor Justinian's own death; it was rumored that Belisarius had been blinded and condemned to live as a beggar to prevent him from resurrecting the Western Empire.